


Never Lost With You

by Moonfire14



Series: Mad Whale [1]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Denial of Feelings, Domestic Fluff, Eventual Happy Ending, Eventual Romance, Falling In Love, First Kiss, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Gen, M/M, Male-Female Friendship, Multi, Parenthood, Parenting Cuteness, Past Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Past Character Death, Past Relationship(s), Post-Regina's First Dark Curse, Pre-Regina's First Dark Curse, Separation, Slow Burn, acquaintances to friends
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-06
Updated: 2018-08-22
Packaged: 2019-02-07 02:01:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12830946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moonfire14/pseuds/Moonfire14
Summary: Dr. Victor Frankenstein was never a man who saw himself as having very many friends or people to love so in the wake of his brother’s death and his failures as not only a son and a brother but as a doctor and scientist, he finds himself wanting to get away, to forget. The opportunity shows itself when the strange man, the portal jumper, he’d worked with for Rumpelstiltskin appears in his lab, grin plastered to his face and hand outstretched with an offer of adventure.These are thirty prompt based chapters with an overarching storyline and while I imagine they can be read alone I decided to put them all in one story as I feel they likely should be read in order. Each prompt will be listed with the chapter it was used for.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: Getting Lost Somewhere

Victor remembers his childhood as a series of getting lost deep in the expansive forest that surrounded his family’s summer home. He’d never had a way with directions, but he'd never had to because Gerhardt, his steadfast little brother, always knew just where to find him and lead him back into the world of the living.

Not that it did him any good now. Gerhardt was gone. He'd failed at truly bringing him back and now Victor was lost in a world he knew next to nothing about with a man who was meant to be just a one-time business partner. The very man in question who now lay in the dark sand on the other side of the flickering campfire, black coat and satchel pillowed under his tanned cheek. Victor could not fathom how but the portal jumper had managed to fall under sleep’s grasp in this strange world, leaving Victor to his poisonous thoughts as waves tinted crimson by the blood red moon above them licked at the gray shores just yards over the shoulder of the sleeping man.

Too bright images of a small hand gripping his own as he's pulled from the expansive, haunting darkness and into their mother’s waiting arms threaten to fill Victor’s head, but he no longer feels like entertaining them. Instead he finds himself focusing on how the soft, dying firelight dances over the plaint face of his companion, making the roguish man carry an almost childlike vulnerability and openness. Gone is the sharp, impish smile, the face that had greeted him in his laboratory just hours earlier, paired with an outstretched hand, the promise of wonders he's never seen before, adventure, and the chance to lose himself and bury his failures as though they never happened for the time being. The chance to forget Victor Frankenstein, everything he stood for and what everyone had made him to be. 

Victor hadn't expected to truly get lost but maybe it was for the best. This time Victor had no one left but himself to find him in the darkness. At least now he had someone to get lost with.

His new friend, if Victor can call him that yet, snorts in his sleep as though he's privy to Victor’s thoughts and maybe he is. Victor wouldn't put it past the world he comes from and what magic the man may have, and he finds himself laughing at the thought; a deprecating, bitter thing as the fire’s ember slowly die, letting the darkness overtake him.

Odd, he thinks as his eyes slide close. He expected it to feel like falling, the sobering plummet before the sickening thud.

Instead it feels like finding ground under his feet, a steady starting point.


	2. Chapter Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Washing Something

Kneeling by the pale gray, slightly viscous body of liquid that was what amounted to an ocean in this place while scrubbing viciously at his coat and coming up with every colorful name he knows, even inventing some new ones for his companion, is decidedly not how Victor expected to spend most of his second afternoon in this land. Despite his scrubbing, the liquid seems to be doing nothing to clean his coat of the thick, clinging green slime smeared across it and if Victor didn't know his eyes better than that, he would have sworn it was getting worse the longer he scrubbed.

“I think it's a lost cause. You should just let the coat die an honorable death,” The voice of his companion sounded from his resting spot, his voice a mix of amused and sarcastic. A blend Victor has come to realize the man employs a lot and for the life of him, Victor wants to punch him. And what's worse he was right about the coat, not that Victor would admit it even if he wasn't currently irritated at his companion.

“See if I save you next time,” Victor mutters darkly as his next scrub makes some of the goop cling to his fingers and he tosses the coat aside in disgust, turning to glare at the man as though it would make him feel better.

It probably would if he was paying the doctor any attention at all, but his eyes are focused on the map resting on his knees as he fills in the mostly blank paper with where they have been today. However, Victor isn't a lucky man because of course he heard his muttering and his reply was given without a single glance up.

“How was I supposed to know it would try to eat us?”

Victor groans and flops backward into the fine, dark sand near the other man’s boots and fixes his eyes up at the pale pink midday sky, lit strangely by the same moon that had turned the water crimson in the night. He tests out all the things he could say in response, most involving foul words and bestowing the solid, justified title of idiot on the man. Instead he bites his tongue and levels himself up onto his elbow to watch the man work, a grin plastered on his face that doesn't make Victor disbelieve that mind reading might be in the portal jumper’s bag of magic tricks. He always seems to know what's on Victor’s mind even if it just a string of frustrated curses but maybe the man is just perceptive, and Victor is thinking too hard.

“How about next time we don't go near the fanged creatures that could eat both of us in one bite,” are the words Victor finally settles on and instead of a nod of agreement or a sheepish look or really anything that makes sense, he's met by blue eyes sparkling with mischief and impish delight.

“Now where's the fun in that?” The man says as he slides his map back into his satchel and rises to his feet offering Victor barely a look over his shoulder as he begins to walk away. “We still have more of this land to explore.”

Victor can't tell if that's an invitation to follow him and get moving again, a threat or warning of what's to come, or a promise. Yet he still finds himself rising to his feet, seemingly without having thought to do so. 

“Just don't get yourself killed, Jumper. You've got the only way back,” Victor replies as he follows the other along the dusky beach, unsure if he even cares about going back right now when all that's waiting for him is everything he left for, but in some way, he knows he has to return eventually. He can't run forever.

“Your concern is just heartwarming,” The amused sarcasm is back but Victor finds he wants to hit him just a little less. There's a pause filled only by their boots shifting in the sand with their steps before his companion speaks again. “I have a name you know.”

“Your name wasn't exactly on a need to know basis for Rumpelstiltskin. I was only ever informed about Regina’s. And only then because I asked.” Victor falls into step with the man. It should be a bit disconcerting he’s traveling with a man he doesn't even know the name of but somehow it doesn't bother him.

“It's Jefferson,” Says another grin, this time one Victor finds himself echoing.

“Well then Jefferson, lead the way.”

Victor might not be able to run forever but tagging along on Jefferson’s adventure doesn't seem like running, not when he words it like that, so all he must do is keep the man from getting himself killed and he never has to run; just tag along.


	3. Chapter Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Making Fun of Each Other
> 
> This so doesn't fit the prompt but oh well XD Also the universe apparently didn't want me to upload as I meant to have this up the Friday before last but then I got sick and didn't feel like writing and then I kinda lost inspiration and long story short the only reason this is up now is thanks to me binge-watching the Captain America movies and somehow regaining inspiration from that and then sheer determination to overcome my computer issues with the sites I post to and my writing program.
> 
> Warnings: Potentially triggering descriptions of physical child abuse and mild homophobia seen through a flashback and panic attack

Over the past exhausting week and a half Victor has been traveling in this strange and dangerous but utterly fascinating land, he’s come to learn a lot about the workings of the land and oddities around him such as how the wrinkled hissing creatures that prowl the beaches at night, teeth gnashing and claws scraping menacingly, detest fire even in the smallest doses or how the apples that grow in the topmost branches of the gnarled and blackened trees are achingly sweet when eaten at night when they glow a fluorescent pink hue but unbearably bitter in the light of day. The doctor has also come to discover that his traveling companion has the uncanny ability to find trouble in the most mundane settings, so a watchful eye is almost a necessity for not only his own safety but also his remaining sanity after finding the man submerged up to his chest in the murky water, a fish clutched in his hands with the jumper’s hat perched on its scaly head, offering only a sheepish grin after Victor had taken his eyes off him for barely a minute. 

So really Victor can only chalk the predicament that occurs that day to himself not being in his right mind to let Jefferson wonder off on his own, seeking out more than the apples he’d amassed for trade once this journey was over while Victor himself was content to rest and sketch the landscape he can see from where he’s perched on a low hanging branch, placid ocean and slate gray beach spilling from the tip of his pencil as the rose pink sky begins to darken to the nighttime maroon.

The acrid, burning scent is what alerts him first as the scent seems unique to a particularly vicious and deadly predator the two travelers had had one too many run-ins with, Victor’s coat becoming thankfully the only causality at the massive jaws of the beasts. The smell is quickly followed the shaking of the ground that accompanied the approach of the beast, thundering under its massive clawed paws and Victor finds himself tensing, images of gaping maws and fangs dripping with gloopy green spittle making him shiver, despite knowing the beast could be miles away.

However, it’s the shout of “Run, Doc!” that has Victor’s breath picking up painfully quick and his head snapping towards where the shore rose to meet the scattered rock outcroppings just before his companion flings himself through a gap in the rock, boots sliding as he contacts the sand. The doctor is throwing himself into motion, clambering from the branches and gathering their things in a single move, before the towering, scaly wolf-like creature has even begun to muscle its way through the gap.

Without uttering a single word or barely pausing in his pace, Jefferson is breezing by Victor, grasping him tightly around the wrist and pulling the doctor into pace with him. The ground trembles behind them as the creature breaks through the rock, beginning its deadly charge as the sand sucks at the men’s feet, trying to drag them to an unfortunate death with every stride as their precious head start diminishes.

“I thought we agreed not to go near them,” Victor squeezes out, the anger he’s trying to force in his voice not quite shimmering hot enough to kill off the numbing poison of fear and panic, thankful that Jefferson’s grip does not falter as Victor stumbles in his gait.

“You’re so uptight Doc,” Jefferson says back, grin so audible in his voice that Victor can see it clear as day splitting the man’s face. “Just roll with the punches and live a little.

”You’re insane,” Victor finds himself gaping, caught between the fear of the creature hot on their heels, taking its time with the attitude of a predator who knows that its prey couldn’t escape, and anger at the grinning man in front of him, free hand clinging almost comically to his hat as he ran. The doctor resolves if he survives this to seriously consider what kind of person it makes him that this is the kind of person he chose for a companion and spent nearly two weeks in the company of without realizing he might be completely off his rocker. “You’re clinically insane if you think this is f- “

The words are knocked away with his breath as his head smacks into the side of a rock wall, sending him reeling forward and knocking his knees into Jefferson’s thighs as the man presses them further into the compressing, tight crevice as the creature paws at the thin opening. Victor’s head is spinning, the world tilting on its axis as he tries desperately to get his feet back under him, helped along by the strong hands braced on his elbows. Even as they manage to get Victor leaning back against the opposite wall, rocks digging deep into his spine, black spots are swimming in the doctor’s vision and everything feels too small, too close, too breathless. Hands press lightly to his head, tilting and tenderly pressing fingers onto the forming bump, touch gentle and clinical but it breaks the thinly constructed dam Victor had forced up long ago.

Victor feels the phantom press of fingernails digging into his scalp, just over his ears with just enough leverage to slam his head back into the door frame. Again and again and again. His vision is swimming and he can feel blood licking a hot trail down his spine. Every breath he takes is like knives stabbing into him and pushed out just as roughly when his head collides with wood yet again. Distantly he hears a soft questioning, a soft mummer of the word doc. He doesn’t know who uttered it; his mom, Gerhardt. It hardly mattered as Victor was sure each breath would be his last regardless of whether they called a doctor or not, barely even a boy and already dead.

He swears he can taste blood at the back of his throat and finds himself wondering distantly, deliriously that maybe if he coughs he’d see it. Coughing, however, requires breath, something he’s quickly losing. Victor’s skull smashes into the mahogany and he chokes on his next breath before it’s punched out.

“Breathe,” A voice, distantly and muffled intones and if he could, he’d laugh at the ridiculousness of the statement now.

“Victor! Focus on my voice. Breathe.“

The voice is insistent and almost soothing, prompting Victor to pry open the eyes he’d never even realized he’d closed. He sees the pleading dark, dark eyes of the boy, the boy his father had caught him kissing against the door frame. It’s his mouth that opens, that prompts him to breathe in, to listen, to breathe out.

When he cracks his eyes open again, breaths steadying and long-dead ghosts of pain fading, it’s to softened blue eyes and a gentle, calming smile the likes of which Victor had yet to see on the face of his companion. Slowly the fuzziness fades from the doctor’s vision and awareness seeps back in; awareness of the steadying hands resting comfortably on his shoulders, the thumbs stroking calmingly across his collarbone, the sharp rocks of the cave floor digging into his newly raw knees, and the light, barely-there press of another chest against his own. 

The hands ease him backward, urging him to rest his weight against the bumpy wall which Victor easily, eagerly slumps back against still gulping down greedy breaths as Jefferson collapses across from him, legs spread out and knees knocking together. The casual touch of their legs is impossible to avoid in this confined space but to Victor in this moment, it seems like both too much and too little.

Their breaths are quiet and even in the smalls space between them, Jefferson not pressing for any explanation and Victor trying to find his words without really knowing where to begin or if he would rather not speak at all.

“How” is what he settles on, but the rest gets caught in his throat, however, Jefferson seems to understand.

“My mother used to have panic attacks,” He smiles softly and leans his head back, hat balancing precariously. “That was nothing I haven’t seen before.“

Silence falls between the men yet again, both with warm smiles spread across their faces before Victor finds himself laughing, nearly deliriously. “I reiterate. You’re crazy," The doctor gasps out between breathy laughs.

Jefferson chuckles, grin spreading wider across his face and taking on that normal impish lift back to it, predatory in nature almost. “In my experience, the best people are.“

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you guys enjoyed and I hope the next chapter doesn't take as long :)


	4. Chapter Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Watching Each Other Sleep
> 
> So I had this done two weeks ago but I was iffy on it as I wrote it at five am on a coffee and sleep deprivation induced high but then today, ironically on Friday the thirteenth, I had a terrible scare where my laptop rebooted and I was ninety percent sure I had lost everything but luckily I was able to fix the problem and I had backups. So after that I decided to finally look through this chapter, edit it and post it.
> 
> I also finally figured out how to fix my issues with my writing program and this site.
> 
> Warnings: Implied Past Suicide

Soft early dawn rays glide through the tiny cracks and imperfections in the cave face, dancing over the faint smoldering embers of the night’s small campfire and illuminating the slack expression of the jumper as he lay curled on his side facing the doctor just inches away. Calling the place, they have wedged themselves in for the night, a cave was too generous as there’s barely room for either of them but it’s better then the crevice they’d spent that first night in after the terrifying chase and infinitely better then risking the monsters out in the open night. However, this cramped space leaves little to draw Victor’s eyes away when he finds himself mindlessly following the path of the light across the features of his companion.

Nearly a month of travel together filled with sleepless and nightmare plagued nights should have conditioned Victor to how the man looked when he slept but somehow each time the doctor finds himself struck by how strange a sight it is, how juxtaposed it is from the man in the day. When awake Jefferson is an animated person, all grins and grand gestures with nearly his whole body when he finds something exciting (which in Victor’s experience is more often then the jumper would likely admit) but his sleep is calm and seemingly undisturbed outside of the softest, barely there flutters of the long dark eyelashes fanning his cheeks as the light warms them. Jefferson’s breaths however remain deep and even, breathed into the pillow of his coat and dark, disheveled strands of hair brush across the bridge of his nose with each exhale.

It’s not the first time that Victor has been struck with the thought that Jefferson is beautiful but still it catches his breath in his throat. Victor’s never been a man who could avoid or ignore beauty. In fact, he sought it out, captured it in sketches and immortalized it on countless pages of sketchbooks since the time he was old enough to hold a pencil. He’d captured many beautiful things like the truly happy moments of his mother as she’d dance along to the music Gerhardt could play on the piano, the toothy grin Gerhardt would give Victor every time one or both of them found themselves in childish trouble and would hide themselves away in their own special hiding spot, the twinkle in the dark eyes of the first boy Victor had ever befriended…

Victor Frankenstein was never someone who made friends easily, lacking his mother’s natural good grace and easy compassion and his brother’s charisma and social skills. Victor was the shy child, the one who’d rather hide away in his books and sketchpads, more gifted with a pencil and a beaker then people. However, unlike his father, his mother encouraged this behavior, cultivated the arts in her boys and without her Victor doubts he would have pursued his wants, pursued his curiosity at the world. But some days he also bitterly thinks that without her, he wouldn’t be the man he was, the black sheep, the fuck-up. He’d be a good son, someone his father could have loved as much as Gerhardt.

His fingers itch for his sketchbook but he digs his nails into his palm. Drawing the good things in his life never did him any good in the long run. All the drawings left him were bitter memories of a better time before the bad, the ugly leeched it’s way in and stole the beauty of his world; the way his mother’s happiness seemed to be leached from her the older he got and the dances becoming that of a woman already dead inside before she greeted death at the bottom of a bottle of more fatal poison than alcohol, the sight of Gerhardt’s bright grins being wiped forever away by a bullet in his gut, and even the empty eyes of a boy he had once called his as he turned his back on the doctor with only spitting curses and venom in his words. Victor had learned long ago that trying to preserve the beauty around him only makes it fade all the faster.

In the end though he was still losing this, losing this companionship he’d so greatly been craving without realization. It was the last day they had any reason to remain in this world and the last day Victor would likely ever see this strange, insane man whom he had grown to call a friend. Jefferson would return to the place he’d called the Enchanted Forest laden with otherworldly objects to sell while Victor would return to his own world, to a house devoid of any love and to a monster who only wore the face of a brother he couldn’t bear to let go. He’s going back to a life in which every good thing he’s ever attempted has come crashing down around his ears and he hold no disillusions that he will ever get this experience again or ever see Jefferson again.

“Hunting demons?” Jefferson’s rough, morning heavy voice intones, snapping Victor back to himself, as the man stretches and yawns, smearing a hand across his face before maneuvering himself into a sitting position, his boots knocking amicably against the doctor’s crossed legs. “Well put away the pitchforks for the day because we've got a long walk to the door and it'll probably take another day to find a place to sell everything I've found before we can get you home.”

Victor doesn’t miss the small grin that finds its way onto the man’s face when he finds his own eye widening when he realizes just what the jumper has said.


	5. Author's Note

This has been a long time coming really cause I have haven't updated this story in a while and at first it was because I was busy. I graduated, I moved, I was working on my first book... still am actually and things just got hetic but I have to admit now that this story hasn't been updated simply because I don't like how it was turning out and it was annoying me and yet still nagging at the back of mind of my mind that I haven't finished this when I was so determined to at first but I think at this point I need to move on to other stories. I'll probably come back to this one eventually but it'll be a while for sure.


End file.
